Are you seeking a beautiful home situated in the hills overlooking the bay? Well, look no further this spacious home offers lots of potential. The living room is huge with a wood burning fireplace and is along side the family room centered right in the middle of the home. The master has a bath & walk in closet. Outdated features throughout. Close to freeway for a quick commute + much more 2 offer

What does a house with lots of potential and cost ~$1M look like? Well, sure the outside may be a bit frumpy, but let’s go inside and explore the grandeur of this house:

Trust me. You’re not going to find that tile
pattern anywhere else. This is definitely one of a kind. Super RARE!

Don’t they say that everything old is new again? Well, in this case, you’re going to be buying a bleeding edge kitchen!

All those tiles! I’m thinking… very large bathroom! Or… with a few more mirrors, it could be the Mirror Scene from Enter the Dragon!

A top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee signaled that the broad outlines of a settlement to resolve mortgage-servicer abuses should push for penalties higher than the reported $20 billion figure.

On Thursday, the Journal reported that the Obama administration, federal regulators, and state attorneys general were ironing out broad outlines of a settlement to resolve abuses that first surfaced when foreclosure processes broke down last fall. The settlement could push for banks to write down loan balances for troubled borrowers, and several stakeholders in the talks have pushed for a settlement of more than $20 billion.

Here’s the quote that caught my eye in this piece on spanking bankers for taking away peoples’ homes by forging documents:

The banking industry has knocked the Obama administration’s nascent proposal, saying that the settlement is too large relative to the size of their abuses and that it is also too small to have any meaningful impact on the housing market.

So what would have meaningful impact on the housing market? I’m sure you all have some excellent ideas what would work. Shakespeare said in Henry VI, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” So what should we do to the bankers?

Of course, there’s a catch. To take advantage of this amazing offer, you have to already live in the FUHSD attendance area. Talk about the rich getting richer! Here’s the most recent test scores, for those fortunate enough to consider this amazing (and very limited) opportunity.

School

City

2010 Growth, 2009 base API

Cupertino HS

Cupertino

891 / 879

Fremont HS

Sunnyvale

730 / 740

Homestead HS

Cupertino*

858 / 852

Lynbrook HS

San Jose

939 / 925

Monta Vista HS

Cupertino

943 / 935

*Located right at Cupertino/Sunnyvale border and the vast majority of students are from Sunnyvale, with remainder from Cupertino and Los Altos. Hey Fremont, the “growth” API means it’s supposed to get BIGGER than the “base” score. That means the growth number is supposed to go UP. You know. MORE.

And some other wanna-be high schools are almost as aggressive about removing “illegal students” as FUHSD. What a sincere form of flattery, hiring a private detective to ferret out people living on the wrong street.

February 25, 2011

Sometimes Burbed readers find a great house to share but can’t wait for us to write it up, post it and finally have it appear. After all, we only post one house per weekday. So instead they post the house to comments, and then we think, dang! That’s such a terrific find, if only they’d sent to us for a write-up. And sometimes we think, oh hell, we’ll write it up anyway! So, you may have seen this before, but it’s getting the Full Burby! Our thanks to Burbed reader Tuno for this insightful look at socioeconomic disparity.

Remember, if you prefer the element of surprise, you can always send listings and contributions to either burbed or madhaus (at) burbed.com.

Bank Owned Home located in one of the most desirable areas of upper Redwood City. This home offers 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, kitchen and living / dining room combo. The lot size is approximately . 25 acres. This home has great potential. Seller is extremely motivated – all reasonable offers welcomed.

this is one of my favorite houses at the moment, because it is a perfect Serf House. if you go to street view and look at it (you may have to scroll up the road a little), it looks like an ordinary very modest little house. then turn around and see what is across the street. Presto - you can be the live-out serf!!! the house across the street may not be as magnificant as your examples, madhaus, but *they* don’t include serf huts.

Well, we’d best take a look at that Street View and see what Tuno is talking about! Here’s the so-called Serf House we’re featuring today.

Not many Street View photos manage to fit three different houses on three different lots into one picture, but this one did it! Wondering how? Have a gander at those lot lines!

Hey, let’s have that peek at the house across the street, because its profile is wider than it is deep.

Whoa! The other place had both neighbors elbowing their way into the picture, but this housing tumor just crowds the lens! After looking at this across-the-street view, you’ll feel like you live in picture #9 from the listing:

They’ve even left the door open for you! Maybe the current live-out serf is hard at work threshing the wheat. No wonder the seller is extremely motivated!

February 23, 2011

Let’s welcome Burbed reader sonarrat to the front page again with another amazing find. This submission came about after sending in a few listings for us to write up, and one went into particular detail. So here it is for all of you to enjoy, even though it is (amazingly) pending (but with release, so there’s still a chance!).

All Burbed fans are invited to submit listings for us to put together, or write it up yourself if you feel inspired. Send them to burbed or madhaus at this site (your choice, because you deserve one!) We reserve the right to edit your submission into something your own mother wouldn’t recognize while leaving your name on it.

Great for a first time home buyer. A Huge lot to build more home or get a home Renovation Loan on this great opportunity.

Great for a first time home buyer. A Huge lot to build more home or get a home Renovation Loan on this great opportunity.

So, I took a pretty long look at this place. Big lot, not on a busy road, walk your kids to the library, blah blah blah. Seemed like at the very least, a decent investment, seeing how it was the least expensive house in Evergreen and it had tenants living in it until fairly recently. Let’s just say the house comes with a couple caveats.

There is nowhere to put laundry facilities. No gas hookup and no 220V electric in the “laundry” area, which consisted entirely of a big washbasin in a moldy and rotting addition to the rear of the house.

Original 1948 kitchen with a very dirty green and yellow lino floor against red and yellow tiles, then white cabinets and a counter insert on the left in the fakest granite-look finish you can imagine. One of the worst color combinations I’ve ever seen.

The bedrooms are both on the left corner of the house and couldn’t be more than 10×10 each. No offensive colors there, just newer beige carpet and windows with bullet holes in them. From the inside.

One working furnace out of two.

Bathroom is extremely pink. New vanity and curtain rod installed in an improvisatory fashion.

There was so much termite damage in the attached “den” area that I was left with no doubt the whole kit and caboodle would need to be razed, and that I was happy to continue renting.

After a two-month lull because of a national paperwork scandal, foreclosures in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in January returned to levels that have prevailed since 2008, indicating the crisis will continue this year but also putting more low-priced homes on the market.

Last month’s increase in foreclosures may be followed by bigger increases in the next few months, according to some real estate professionals.

In Santa Clara County in January, 398 home were either repossessed or sold by lenders to third-party buyers, a nearly 70 percent jump from the month before, according to real estate information service ForeclosureRadar. San Mateo County had 160 foreclosures in January, a 75 percent jump from December.

Paperwork scandal? You know what the scandal is? The banks have all those borrowers by their balls liens, and won’t just get on with it. Seize the property, auction it, and get the prices down to where they need to be, so the overbidding can start again. Nobody is going to overbid if they’re just sitting around waiting for the banks to dispose of their ginormous shadow inventory.

Well, I don’t know if we have a Silicon Valley version of a groundhog, but it was sunny on February 2nd, so there must have been plenty of shadows. So keep watching for that shadow inventory to cast itself on a real estate site near you!

We’re hoping some of those places were painted interesting colors, or replaced the front lawn with crushed automobiles, or maybe even set up a commercial-grade pharmaceuticals lab right in the kitchen! And we’re really hoping they’re priced for lucky amounts, like $888,000.

Meanwhile if you find a great place like that, please pass it on to us so we can share it. After all, we have to make sure those Open Houses have lots of people passing through, because nothing says Real Estate is Back like running out of flyers!

Disclaimer

The posts on this weblog are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and only represent the view of Burbed.com's editor. Comments are the views of commenters, not Burbed. If companies, properties, etc are mentioned on this blog, you should assume that I have a financial stake in them. Trust no one.